The Dinner
by DeafAngelLove
Summary: "Clint was slumped against the door, his head resting against the wall behind him, eyes closed and brow furrowed. It was obvious to Natasha that he was lost in a memory, and, judging by the way his fists were clenched and the look on his face, it wasn't a very good one." In which Tony invites the team to dinner and Clint gets lost in a memory. Set between IM3 and Winter Soldier


Tony had invited them all over for dinner. He said it was a late holiday celebration, and nobody questioned it. Most everyone had eagerly accepted, hoping to get to know their new "teammates". And so, the Avengers gathered on a chilly Saturday evening in the middle of January. Well, in all actuality, it was the Avengers plus Pepper, but who was counting, really?

Things were good at first, Tony had a very Thanksgiving-esk meal spread out on the counter, buffet-style, as his guests arrived. He'd set it all up in his open living room, so one side held the dining table and the other held a half circle of couches around a crackling fire place with a flat-screen TV above the mantle. Everyone was friendly with each other as they all sat down to eat, and even Steve was making jokes and pop culture references along with everyone else.

About half-way through the meal, though, Clint rose from his seat and whispered to Natasha that he was headed to the bathroom. Natasha nodded and decided to ignore the slightest tremor that was in his voice. About ten minutes later, Clint still wasn't back from the bathroom, and Natasha decided to stop ignoring that tremor.

Unnoticed by the others, Natasha slipped off to find her partner. True to his word, he had headed to the bathroom, he just hadn't quite made it there. Clint was slumped against the door to the bathroom, his head resting against the door behind him, eyes closed and brow furrowed. It was obvious to Natasha that he was lost in a memory, and, judging by the way his fists were clenched and the look on his face, it wasn't a very good one.

Natasha slid down the wall to sit next to him and asked, "What happened?"

Clint tensed at the sound of her voice and shook his head. "It's nothing," he whispered, his voice rough.

Natasha shot him a skeptical look. "You can't lie to me, Clint," she reminded him. "You should know that by now."

Clint cleared his throat and bent his head, opening his eyes to stare at the floor as he whispered, "Stark's drinking scotch."

Natasha looked away. "Damn. I'll go talk to him." She started to get up, but Clint grabbed her wrist.

"No!" Clint finally looked up at her with a panicked look in his eyes and she could see he'd been crying. "'Tasha, you can't!"

"You've got to face this, Clint," Natasha told him, turning to look him in the eye. She pulled her wrist from his grasp as she said "You've got to be honest with them."

As she walked away, Clint called after her "Natasha, wait!"

Natasha ignored him and kept walking. Clint scrambled up to go after her, but by the time he got to dining room, Natasha already had Tony's glass of scotch in her hand. Clint skidded to stop just inside the dining room door as Natasha poured the scotch down the drain.

Stark was looking at her like she'd gone insane. "What the hell, Romanoff?" he asked, standing to pour himself another.

Natasha ignored him and looked to Clint, who was still standing in the doorway. "Get out here," she ordered, pointing at the ground in front of her. When Clint didn't move, she added "Now."

For a second, Clint contemplated using an old trick from his circus days when one of the magicians had taught him how to disappear. It would have been easy, but Natasha would just tell them his story anyway. In all honesty, it'd probably be better if it came from him. Trying to look as small as possible, Clint shuffled further into the room, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "Sorry, Tony," he mumbled, "its my fault. I just- I can't-" He took a deep breath, "Scotch brings back some... bad memories."

The room froze, all sounds of eating and normal dining behavior stopped as everyone stared. "Shit, Barton, I'm sorry," Tony apologized after a moment of the most awkward silence Clint had experienced since he'd accidentally ended a phone call with Fury by saying 'I love you'. Everyone seemed to realize that they were flat out staring at Clint and all eyes returned to the food as Tony returned to his seat, with the exception of Natasha's. She was still staring Clint down, prodding him to explain further. Clint was eager to change the subject, and thus avoided looking Natasha in the eye, or even looking at her in general, really.

Against Natasha's obvious wishes, Clint allowed Thor to change the subject by regaling them all with stories from his most resent battles. The rest of the meal passed without too much drama, and nobody ended up drinking anything that wasn't either water or wine, despite the fully stocked bar in the corner of the room. After dinner, everyone moved slowly from the dining area to the circle of couches in the other side of the room. They chatted easily for awhile and generally just tried to get to know one another a little better. Tony had just finished a rather funny tale about the first time he met Pepper, which involved an elevator, a case of mistaken identity, and a rather unfortunate amount of alcohol, when Natasha redoubled her efforts to get Clint to share what he would classify as highly personal information. Both spies could tell that nobody had forgotten about what had happened at dinner quite as much as they all were implying. Clint, for one, was all too happy to act like the incident had been forgotten, pointedly ignoring Natasha every time she tried to make eye contact and adding his two cents to the conversation every now and then to make sure no one got it into their head that he was being too quiet.

After a lull in the conversation, though, Clint couldn't stand it anymore. It was the forth or fifth time he'd caught Steve staring at him, and the third time he'd caught Tony when he said something. "Will you guys stop staring at me like I'm going to fall apart?" he asked, glancing around the room with one eyebrow raised.

Steve looked away, ashamed at being caught, but Tony held Clint's gaze and asked "Well, are you?" Steve stared at Tony like he'd just gone and poked a sleeping bear with a stick. Which wasn't to far from what he'd actually done.

"I'm not going to break, Stark," Clint responded, his voice still calm, but his eyes narrowed slightly and colder than before.

"You sure?" Tony asked, putting his feet up on the ottoman in front of him. "Cause I'm not. What even was that?"

"It was nothing," Clint said, shifting a little in his seat, obviously uncomfortable with where this was going.

Tony let out a harsh laugh. "Oh, come on, Legolas," he started, "that wasn't nothing. Where did you even go? 'Tasha practically had to drag you back into the room."

"I said it was nothing, Stark," Clint ground out, now more visibly agitated. His fists were clenched at his sides and his whole body was tense. "Just drop it, okay?"

Tony opened his mouth to argue further, but Steve broke in. "Tony-" his voice was soft as he spoke, "maybe you should back off."

"No," Tony said decisively, pulling his feet off the ottoman and leaning forward in his chair. "No, I need to know these things if I'm gonna work with people. If Barton is going to freak out every time I want to have a drink-"

"I did _not_ freak out," Clint barked, his eyes flashing. It was at this point that Natasha considered stepping in, but soon discarded the notion. For now, Clint was talking, which was good and not something he'd been doing much of since Loki, and if things got out of hand, Natasha knew she was more than capable of subduing him.

"Oh, that's right, you'll just go cry in the corner," Tony snarked, rolling his eyes, and Natasha almost cringed as she saw Clint's eyes turn to ice before he looked down at his feet. Not a smart move, Stark. "What's your deal?"

"You want to know what my 'deal' is?" Clint asked, his voice soft as he stared a his shoes. "You want to know what my 'deal' is?" he repeated, louder this time, as he looked up to stare Tony in the eye. "What my 'deal' is with scotch at dinner? The _deal,_ Stark, is that my father loved scotch with his meals. You know what else he loved? Beating on his kids, his wife. Barney and I knew by the time we were in grade school that if we weren't in our rooms by six, we risked Dad coming home, drunk off his ass, and beating us until he got tired of it. And, sometimes, hiding in your room wasn't enough, and he'd come find you. I knew how to properly bandage a cut with a ripped up bed sheet by the time I was seven, I could set a broken bone at eight, because we couldn't go to the hospital. My tenth birthday present was my mom deciding that she'd had enough and walking out. When I was eleven, I was late getting home one night and my dad saw me and the beating he gave me took most of my ability to hear. The day I turned twelve, Barney and I packed our bags while Dad was out and we ran and we never once looked back." Clint took a deed breath as everyone sat in utter silence. No one was sure when he gotten to his feet, but he'd been steadily moving closer to Tony as he spoke and now he was towering over the billionaire who was instinctively shrinking back into his chair."So, yeah, I don't like the smell of scotch. _That's_ what the 'deal' is, Stark," Clint spat out before grabbing his jacket from the back of his seat and, by passing the elevator, took the door leading to the stairway down to the garage.

"Well, that didn't go quite like I'd hoped," Natasha commented dryly, moving to get up to go after him.

"Natasha," Bruce started, already standing. "Do you mind if I go after him? I have a little... experience in this area."

Natasha looked at him skeptically, but nodded, settling back into her seat. Bruce gave the room a tight smile, then turned to head down the stairs after Clint. No one was really quite sure what to do or say after Bruce left, except Pepper, who quickly excused herself to the bathroom, so they sat in silence for a few minutes before Tony apparently regained the ability to speak.

"I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it sure as hell wasn't that," Tony said, standing up himself and moving to the bar to get a drink. At Steve's raised eyebrow, Tony rolled his eyes and said "I'm just getting some water, Rogers, lighten up."

Steve sighed and looked at the stairwell door. "Do you think Banner got caught up with him?" he asked, glancing over at Natasha who was still curled up in her loveseat.

She let out a laugh. "Clint didn't go very far, I'm sure," Natasha informed Steve. "He was probably expecting me to go after him."

"You knew about this?" Tony asked, returning to his seat, glass of water in hand.

Natasha nodded, saying "I've known Clint for a long time. He's been my partner almost as long as I've been at SHIELD. He had a minor attack once, at an office party, and he explained everything to me then."

"So, you know who 'Barney' is?" Tony prodded, always curious.

"Who Barney _was_ ," Natasha corrected. "But, it's not my story to tell, and I think you've gotten all the Barton family history you're going to get tonight."

Tony let out a slightly annoyed sigh, and Steve shot him a look before getting up to get himself a glass of water.

"It may be best to leave it alone, friend Stark," Thor chimed in for the first time since Clint had left. "Agent Barton will tell us when he is ready, I am sure." Steve nodded in agreement, returning to his seat.

A somewhat comfortable silence fell over the room until the door to the stairwell opened again. Bruce stepped out, and returned to his seat in between Steve and Thor on the couch, but Clint was nowhere to be seen, which put both Steve and Tony a little on edge, though Natasha didn't seem ruffled by it. Bruce looked at Tony after a moment and said "Clint wanted me to apologize to you for him, but, frankly, I think you deserved that. You have enough problems yourself to know not to push on these things, Tony." Tony opened his mouth to argue, but the knowing look in Bruce's eye told Tony that the other man had evidence that he might not want shared with the group.

"Where is he?" Steve asked, concerned for one of the few friends he had in this century.

"He said he had somewhere he needed to be and that, if we needed him, Natasha knew how to contact him," Bruce explained, glancing over at Natasha for conformation. She nodded, studying Bruce's face for clues about just how much the archer had told him.

"Can't we just call his phone?" Tony asked, also wondering if he could track it.

Natasha shook her head even as Bruce pulled the phone out of his pocket. "He left it here," Bruce said, tossing the phone to Natasha, who caught it and slid it into her own pocket.

Natasha almost smiled, but held it back. Every time Clint had one of these attacks involving his father, he always went home. He wouldn't want Tony tracking him, so he'd left his phone as he went to do something his father had never done. Spend some quality time with his kids and his wife. Take some time to just be a dad.

Soon afterwords, everyone went their separate ways, Thor back to London where he and Jane were staying, Steve back to his apartment, and Natasha back to SHIELD's New York headquarters. Bruce had been staying at the tower for the past month or so, ever since the whole mess with Extremis and Aldrich Killian, so he went to his room to find the book he'd been reading while Tony went back to his files to review Clint's SHIELD file and Pepper cleaned up with a little help from Dum-E.

All in all, Tony's dinner didn't go exactly as he'd planned, but it had been interesting. Maybe next time he could get Natasha to spill something juicy about _her_ past.

Fin.


End file.
